Average Vehicle Age Hits 11 Years

If you’re driving a 10-year-old car, don’t feel bad. It turns out that your 10-year-old vehicle is actually younger than more than half the cars on the road today.

Thanks to better parts, more reliable designs, and a serious economic recession since 2009, the average light vehicle is now 11.4 years old, says a new study from research firm R.L. Polk & Co. The study, based on a review of more than 247 million US car and light truck registrations, adds that the average age of today’s vehicles will continue to climb over the next few years.

”This is the oldest vehicles have been since we started tracking it in 1998,” Polk vice president Mark Seng told Design News. “People are clearly hanging onto their vehicles a lot longer today.”

Light duty vehicles have been getting older since 2002, climbing from 9.6 to 11.4 years over an 11-year period, the study said. Over the last few years, the trend toward older cars has been especially noticeable, with the average age jumping from 10.6 to 10.9 between 2010 and 2011, and 10.9 to 11.2 between 2011 and 2012. Polk attributed much of that to the recession, however, as US vehicle sales in those years dropped from 16 million per year to about 10 million.

Seng told Design News that better components and more reliable designs have also been a big contributor to the aging phenomenon. Engines and transmissions have grown more reliable, and vehicle bodies are less prone to rust due to increased use of lightweight plastics. Moreover, electronics have had a surprising effect on reliability, he said.

“For the longest time, everything was tied to maintenance intervals, and consumers had to be trained to have their car checked at a certain number of miles,” Seng told us. “Now, the mechanic can plug the car into a computer and show you the exact failure code. So it’s much easier to convince the consumer that the car needs to be repaired.”

At the moment, the trend appears to be good news for automakers and aftermarket parts suppliers, particularly those who sell to owners of vehicles 12 years old and up. Pent-up demand is creating a bigger market for new cars, with annual US numbers slowly moving back toward the 16 million figure. At the same time, an abundance of 12-year-old vehicles should be good news for aftermarket companies that sell to do-it-yourselfers, who tend to dominate that category.

With or without the recession, however, the trend is clearly tied to product quality, Seng said. “Better maintenance and better parts mean a longer life. It all adds up to a higher-quality vehicle.”

Nice story, Chuck. I've seen this play out in my own life. I used to trade my cars in when they started closing in on 100,000 miles. Now I regularly drive them past 150,000. Cars are getting better.

When I was a kid, my dad bought a new car every three years. He kept the old one for my mom to do errands. So the oldest our cars ever got were three years and six years. Back then, that six-year-old car seemed ancient. The times have certainly changed.

Us too, we regularly hit better than 150K and as much as 250K a couple of times before giving the cars to other family members. Here in Chicago, keeping the car in a garage is key to longevity, but as far as the engine goes, the manufacturers have done an excellent job of engineering a drivetrain that lasts so long.

I think part of the upgrades, back in the day, was that the designs changed more frequently.

There is a big difference between a '68 Mustang and a '74 Mustang. The body styling in 2008 and 2013 aren't radically different.

I think we'll see a small surge in car sales soon. Part of the aging is that people can't afford to buy a new car or they're being cautious. The other key trend is that younger people (teens and 20's) aren't interested in owning cars in the same way that older generations were.

I'm on my third 1997 Chevy Lumina in last few years. Nothing wrong with the first two - traded one for a different car and gave the other away - they are still driving it. Love my current one - easy to work on, only normal wear and tear maintenance, highly rated for safety, seats six with a huge trunk.

All good data points supporting the conclusion – However, having only been taking data since 1998 does not give a much more than an anecdotal conclusion – Certainly not strong enough to warrant any hard strategy decision from an Auto-Maker, for example.

That is good to know! When I lived in the United States my cars were never more than five-seven years old, but here in Portugal I drive a car that's 14 years old and still going. (It's a VW Transporter, which can go for a long time with the right maintenance.) So I am not alone! We all drive pretty old cars around where I live, though. Which is why it was so funny when Porsche recently took over a local beach to do a car showcase and for a week there were about 100 Porsches driving around the roads--the fanciest cars these parts have ever seen. :)

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